2 Good Gymers made their way 50 yards from their previous task to care for the Tiny Forest. Wonderful to see fat juicy buds appearing on the Tiny wee saplings. The mice have made a new home in the amazingly warm compost bin. Fantastic amount of worms & grubs doing their thing in the Tiny Forest compared to the earth elsewhere on the Hill. Great for biodiversity & the future health of the forest. Today's highlight was the addition of a never before seen brand new tool - the clawed werewolf glove. Fabulous bit of kit, has to be used to be believed! So why not come to the next session and see for yourself?

Today's tiny forest tasks included: spreading woodchip onto the circular path, weeding and removing grass, transporting compost from many mini heaps into the newly constructed compost heap, and emptying said compost heap to allow it to be finished off, before refilling. We also carried up another dozen bags of mulch for later use. A busy morning!

Rich and Michael enthusiastically volunteered for the compost heap, expecting to be let loose with hammers and nails, but had to be content with turning out compost and shredding cardboard for a while first. Once they'd been sufficiently Good, they were allowed to smash things with a sledgehammer and finish off construction.

Lucy, Claire (1) and Alistair were battling with the grass that was enjoying our forest's lovely compost, Claire (2) and I took on the mini heaps, and everyone else spread loads of woodchip, and carried more up. Babs also got to pose next to the first ever tree planted in the forest, just about 1 year ago.

Once we were all done, most of us headed to a new cafe, The Kitchen Osbaldwick for a very yummy lunch, before some headed straight on to task 3 of the day.

On a bright & icy morning many GoodGymers appeared from many directions at many locations but ended the morning together with cake in the sun (what could be better?) Frozen woodchip was shovelled & bagged up at the park & ride. After emptying his van of a bath & taking it up to the Tiny Forest (TF) , Neil rescued the bags taking them to the TF. Fortunately this coincided with more GGers arriving and so the bags were carried up the hill and their contents strewn along the path. Meanwhile others were being creative, building a compost bin out of pallets. Yet others skated on the frozen bath pond, breaking the ice & allowing the birds access to water. A really productive morning, thanks to everyone for mucking in.

The woodchip from the previous task was delivered by Neil, Vicky & Ed, while the eager beavers ran over, and after entertaining ourselves taking selfies, improvising a cape and completing our 30 squats, Miki arrived and we loaded up the first batch of bags. Meanwhile the rest of the team were ready and waiting at the tiny forest, keeping warm with squats and planks.

Once delivered, the woodchip was then spread around the forest to improve the very muddy path, while some more weeds were dug out. The leaky old bath was also removed and the hole made bigger, awaiting it's replacement larger bath, producing delightful squelchy noises and one confused frog (rescued and taken to the other bath). As the last batch of woodchip arrived, the beautiful sunshine disappeared and the rain arrived, so we tidied up and called it a day, ticking off another bingo square by walking/running back in the rain.

Ten eager beaver GG’s met at Holgate allotments on New Years Day to get the January Challenge off to a rolling start.

It was a task that could have been managed by a handful, but as it’s January we may as well see how many goodgymmer’s it takes to shovel a pile of bark chip.

After lots of chat, sharing of the one shovel (there were plenty of spades but only one official shovel), a few selfies with other GG’s in whilst doing good and some squats for good measure, we’d all managed to complete plenty of the January Challenge Bingo squares. Wait, I mean, we’d managed to shift the bark chip into bags into the van ready to be taken to our tiny forest.

Then we said our goodbyes as a few set off to run to the next task (I told you they were eager beavers).

I forgot the time of my own task, so after filling the time with some hill reps (this saving everyone else from the peer pressure / FOMO) I arrived to find Claire, Alistair and Miki hard at work already. Our task was to weed an already mulched area, and clear grass and extensive weeds from the to-be-mulched rest, with cuttings being composted on site for Spring.

Jenna and David arrived shortly afterwards (David having done a tour of tree planting sites until he found us) and we got a big chunk done. Despite David not knowing his strength and almost immediately destroying a claw hammer with his 2-handed frenzy approach.

The lovely Claire had prepared us all sandwiches, sticky buns and coffee so we had a quick break as the sun finally arrived, then did a bit more work before heading off home.